• Support Us
  • Tales from the Meeting
facebook
rss
twitter
youtube
email
pinterest
  • Home
  • District Sites
  • Categories
    • Advocacy
    • Data and Accountability Center
    • Family-School Partnerships
    • Funding and Finance
    • School Policy and Procedure
    • Special Education
    • Standards
  • Glossary
  • Special Reports
    • Alabama Accountability Act (AAA)
    • Bullying Forum Resources
    • The Hidden Cost of Public Education
    • Student Harassment Prevention Act
    • Transparency Projects – 2010 and 2009
    • Reports and Stuff
  • About
    • About Us
    • Business Documents
    • Ethics Policy
    • Fundraising Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Our Supporters
  • 2016 Legislative Session
    • 2015 Legislative Summary
    • 2014 Legislative Summary
    • 2013 Legislative Summary
    • 2012 Legislative Summary
    • 2011 Legislative Summary
  • Support Us
Latest News
Goodbye. But only for a moment
Special Education Services Division Complaint Resolved
Enrollment Opens for Alabama’s Non-Traditional High School Diploma
Some Answers About the Alabama Accountability Act from New Reports Mandated by Law
State Department Violated Federal Disability Laws, Test Accommodation Policy Must Be Rewritten
What the Annual Alabama “School Incident Report” Shows
Alabama’s A-F School Grading System Is Almost Ready
Wanna Know More About Who Gets Paddled in Alabama’s Schools?
More Than 90,000 Alabama Students and Nearly 15,000 Teachers Missed a LOT of School – Look Up Your School
How Alabama Compares in the Latest ACT College and Career Readiness Report

What’s the Funding Split Between K-12 and Higher Education?

Posted On Nov 21 2013
By : Trisha Powell Crain
Comment: 0
Tag: Alabama State Department of Education

Funding SplitWhat is the funding split between K-12 and Higher Education in Alabama?

At the October State Board of Education work session, during the discussion about the FY15 budget, Chief of Staff Dr. Craig Pouncey stated that funding provided by the Alabama state legislature, through the Education Trust Fund (ETF), for higher education students (2- and 4-year students) was nearly double that of K-12 students.

Wanting to verify what I had heard, it was time to hunt numbers. Once again, there is no report that contains this information.

Here’s where the numbers were and what the process was to find them: Pulled enrollment figures for K-12 from the ALSDE web site. Pulled enrollment figures for higher ed from the Alabama Commission for Higher Education (ACHE) web site. Pulled ETF appropriations from the Legislative Fiscal Office guides for legislators. Copied, pasted, and typed all of the numbers in to the spreadsheet.

Here is that process captured for your viewing pleasure, if you’d like to pursue the numbers yourself.

In a simplified effort to compare apples to apples, and because Alabama tax dollars are used to fund both K-12 and higher ed, higher ed enrollment was limited to in-state students.

The funding percentage split looks simple. (This split is available on the ETF spreadsheets posted on the LFO web site.)

Funding Split Percentage

Here are enrollment figures.

Enrollment Only

Here are actual per pupil funding figures. This was calculated by dividing the ETF appropriation from the LFO’s Legislator’s Guide to Taxes by the enrollment figures above.

Funding Per Student

Now let’s compare percentages: percentage of actual enrollment versus percentage of actual funding.

Percentage Splits

Finally, here’s what funding for K-12 would have been had funding been based on actual enrollment percentages.

Additional Money Based on Actual Percentages

While this was simply an exercise in number-crunching, it does raise questions about how the split is determined. Certainly there must be some justification for why actual enrollment isn’t used by the state legislature to appropriate funding.

Perhaps a dialogue can now begin.

 

SOURCES for these numbers:
Enrollment data, K-12: ALSDE web site, Public Data reports.
Enrollment data, Higher ed: ACHE web site, Statistical Abstracts, Tuition eligibility reports for all except the 2013-2014 school year. The “Preliminary Fall Enrollment” report was used for 2013-2014 and a 3-year average of in-state enrollment was used to calculate the percentage of in-state enrollment from total enrollment.
Education Trust Fund (ETF) Appropriations: Legislative Fiscal Office, “Legislator’s Guide to Taxes“.

Share this

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
About the Author
    Previous Story

    Test Scores? Who Cares?

    Next Story

    Alabama Isn’t Last in Everything Education – See for Yourself

    Related Posts

    0

    State Department Violated Federal Disability Laws, Test Accommodation Policy Must Be Rewritten

    Posted On Sep 26 2016
    , By Trisha Powell Crain
    0

    Why Change Due Process? Attorneys’ Fees

    Posted On Dec 07 2015
    , By Trisha Powell Crain
    4

    Tying Student Test Scores to Superintendent Evaluations

    Posted On Jun 22 2014
    , By Trisha Powell Crain
    0

    Opting Out of Standardized Tests – What You Need to Know

    Posted On Apr 23 2014
    , By Trisha Powell Crain

    Alabama School Connection Tweets

    Tweets by @ALSchoolConnect

    School Tweets – direct from Twitter

    Tweets from https://twitter.com/ALSchoolConnect/lists/al-k-12-twitter
    Creative Commons License
    This work by Alabama School Connection is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

    Terms of Use
    Privacy Policy

    Past Editions of K-12 Must-Read News

    August 29 to September 25, 2016
    July 25 to August 28, 2016
    June 24 to July 24, 2016
    May 23 to June 23, 2016
    May 2 to May 22, 2016
    April 18 to May 1, 2016
    March 16 to April 17, 2016
    February 23 to March 15, 2016
    February 1 to February 22, 2016
    January 11 to January 31, 2016
    December 21, 2015, thru January 10, 2016
    November 30 thru December 20
    November 11 thru November 30
    October 21 thru November 10
    October 6 thru October 20
    September 14 thru October 5
    August 24 thru September 13
    August 3 thru August 23
    July 16 thru August 2
    June 18 thru July 13
    May 19 thru June 17, 2015
    May 18, 2015
    April 27, 2015
    March 30, 2015
    March 11, 2015
    February 2, 2015
    January 5, 2015
    December 16, 2014

    All past editions available on Storify at https://storify.com/ALSchoolConnect

    This website is intended for informational purposes only. The ASC is a nonprofit news organization and exists only to keep the public informed of issues as they relate to the K-12 education system in Alabama. In the event you feel an error has been made, please contact us immediately at the e-mail link below. The ASC does not maintain offices nor a working telephone number dedicated for the organization. Links are provided as a courtesy, not as an endorsement.
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    • If half of it melts at the beach, you’ve still got plenty. Vodka
    • What is an insurance promotion? All of the latest bet365 new
    • One notable feature is the emphasis on quality
    • Concerning the Province of Acbalec Manzi 44. Installation of
    • Пин Ап - официальный сайт онлайн казино
    • Регистрация на сайте и программа лояльности казино Casino X
    • Media conference: NZ arrests in U. It's okay if a few larger